Xiaoyuan Liu is David Dean 21st Century Professor of Asian Studies at the University of Virginia and Zijiang Professor at East China Normal University. His books include Frontier Passages: Ethnopolitics and the Rise of Chinese Communism, 1921–1945 (2004) and Reins of Liberation: An Entangled History of Mongolian Independence, Chinese Territoriality, and Great Power Hegemony, 1911–1950 (2006).